Introduction: Hepatitis B is a major global health problem and is a most serious type of viral hepatitis, which puts the people at high risk of death from cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. Approximately 30% of the world’s population, or about 2 billion persons, have serological evidence of either current or past infection with hepatitis B virus. Most people in China and India become infected with HBV during childhood. India has intermediate endemicity of Hepatitis B, with Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) prevalence between 2% and 7% among populations studied. It has been estimated that, in India of the 25 million infants born every year, over one million run the lifetime risk of developing chronic HBV infection. Every year over 100,000 Indians die due to illnesses related to HBV infection. Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of HBIG and HBV vaccine in infants born to HBsAg/HBeAg positive mothers by testing for Anti-HBsAg Anibody titres, 2 months after completing immunization. To find what percentage of infants are HBsAg positive even after completing the vaccination. Methodology: Hospital based prospective cohort study of sample size 77 babies born from HBsAg/HBeAg positive mothers. Infants were given 0.5ml Hepatitis B Immunoglobulin and 10 µg recombinant DNA Hepatitis B vaccination at birth followed by 2nd and 3rd dose of Hepatitis B vaccination at 6 weeks and 6 months of life respectively. At the age of 8 months of life tested for HBsAg and Anti-HBs antibody. Depending on the antibody titres, infants will be classified as either responders (≥10miu/ml) or non-responders (<10 miu/ml). Data were processed using SPSS software version 20.0. Results: In LBW infants comprises 45.4% of total study subjects. Maximum babies (79.22%) were delivered by LSCS method.27.2% infants were delivered from mothers having positive for HBeAg and HBsAg.3.89% of study subjects were found to be non-responders at the end of primary hepatitis B vaccine immunization. At the end of primary immunization, all the infants were found to be negative for HBsAg. All vaccine non-responders were delivered through vaginal route(p<0.0001) which is clinically significant. Out of total three non-responders all of them were LBW babies(p<0.0001) which is clinically significant. There is no correlation between sex of the infants and maternal HBeAg status. Conclusion: This study indicate that hepatitis B vaccine in association with HBIG administered at birth provides immediate and long term protection against HB virus infection in infants born to hepatitis B carrier mothers. Birth weight of infants has co-relation with vaccine response, with low vaccine response in LBW subjects as compared to normal birth weight infants. Mode of delivery also contributed to vaccine response as babies born through vaginal route had low response to vaccine as compared to babies born through LSCS.

Introduction: Hepatitis B is a major global health problem and is a most serious type of viral hepatitis, which puts the people at high risk of death from cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer. Approximately 30% of the world’s population, or about 2 billion persons, have serological evidence of either current or past infection with hepatitis B virus. Most people in China and India become infected with HBV during childhood. India has intermediate endemicity of Hepatitis B, with Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) prevalence between 2% and 7% among populations studied. It has been estimated that, in India of the 25 million infants born every year, over one million run the lifetime risk of developing chronic HBV infection. Every year over 100,000 Indians die due to illnesses related to HBV infection. Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of HBIG and HBV vaccine in infants born to HBsAg/HBeAg positive mothers by testing for Anti-HBsAg Anibody titres, 2 months after completing immunization. To find what percentage of infants are HBsAg positive even after completing the vaccination. Methodology: Hospital based prospective cohort study of sample size 77 babies born from HBsAg/HBeAg positive mothers. Infants were given 0.5ml Hepatitis B Immunoglobulin and 10 µg recombinant DNA Hepatitis B vaccination at birth followed by 2nd and 3rd dose of Hepatitis B vaccination at 6 weeks and 6 months of life respectively. At the age of 8 months of life tested for HBsAg and Anti-HBs antibody. Depending on the antibody titres, infants will be classified as either responders (≥10miu/ml) or non-responders (<10 miu/ml). Data were processed using SPSS software version 20.0. Results: In LBW infants comprises 45.4% of total study subjects. Maximum babies (79.22%) were delivered by LSCS method.27.2% infants were delivered from mothers having positive for HBeAg and HBsAg.3.89% of study subjects were found to be non-responders at the end of primary hepatitis B vaccine immunization. At the end of primary immunization, all the infants were found to be negative for HBsAg. All vaccine non-responders were delivered through vaginal route(p<0.0001) which is clinically significant. Out of total three non-responders all of them were LBW babies(p<0.0001) which is clinically significant. There is no correlation between sex of the infants and maternal HBeAg status. Conclusion: This study indicate that hepatitis B vaccine in association with HBIG administered at birth provides immediate and long term protection against HB virus infection in infants born to hepatitis B carrier mothers. Birth weight of infants has co-relation with vaccine response, with low vaccine response in LBW subjects as compared to normal birth weight infants. Mode of delivery also contributed to vaccine response as babies born through vaginal route had low response to vaccine as compared to babies born through LSCS.